4,621 research outputs found
Sap flow of a wild cherry tree plantation growing under Mediterranean conditions: Assessing the role of environmental conditions on canopy conductance and the effect of branch pruning on water productivity
In recent decades, wild cherry has been one of the species most widely used for reforestation in Europe. Studies aiming to select and improve trees to give them the best growth rates and wood properties have increased in response to growers’ demands. However, information relating to key physiological processes such as transpiration or stomatal conductance and to the effect of the common practice of pruning on plant–water relations is scarce. The main objective of this study was to assess the effects of environmental conditions on canopy conductance dynamics. Its secondary objective was to examine the short- and medium-term effects of branch pruning on tree transpiration, growth and derived water productivity. To this end, we measured sap flow in an experimental plantation where trees were subjected to drip irrigation and rain-fed conditions and where variables characterizing climate, soil and tree growth were also monitored. The results demonstrated that the Jarvis–Stewart approach was appropriate for studying the responses of canopy conductance to environmental factors. As well as the role of vapour pressure deficit and net radiation in controlling the daily variations of canopy conductance, the single effects of decreasing soil water content (optimum relative extractable water, REW, higher than 0.4) and increasing air temperature (optimum of 21 °C), as summer conditions approached, were correctly incorporated into the modelling exercise. Soil water content exerted the greatest control on canopy conductance for trees growing under rain-fed conditions, while air temperature did for irrigated trees. Pruning significantly reduced transpiration to about 35% when pre- and post-sub-periods were compared, but also affected annual water productivity regardless of the irrigation treatment. To assess the long-term effects of pruning on water productivity, measurements in both pruned and unpruned trees would be desirable.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio
Fundamental care and knowledge interests: implications for nursing science
Aims and objectives: The aim of this discursive paper was to characterize the intra-theoretical interests of knowledge in nursing science as an epistemological framework for fundamental care.
Background: For Jürgen Habermas, theory does not separate knowledge interests from life. All knowledge, understanding and human research is always interested. Habermas formulated the knowledge interests in empirical-analytical, historical hermeneutic and critical social sciences; but said nothing about health sciences and nursing science.
Design: Discursive paper.
Results: The paper is organised into five sections that develop our argument about the implications of the Habermasian intra theoretical interests in nursing science and fundamental care: the persistence of a technical interest, the predominance of a practical interest, the importance of an emancipatory interest, “being there” to understand individuals’ experience and an “existential crisis” that uncovers the individual’s subjectivity.
Conclusions: The nursing discipline can take on practical and emancipatory interests (together with a technical interest) as its fundamental knowledge interests. Nurses’ privileged position in the delivery of fundamental care gives them the opportunity to gain a deep understanding of the patient’s experience and illness process through physical contact and empathic communication.
Relevance to clinical practice and nursing research: In clinical, academic and research environments, nurses should highlight the importance of fundamental care, showcasing the value of practical and emancipatory knowledge. This process could help to improve nursing science’s leadership, social visibility and idiosyncrasy
Orthogonal U(1)'s, Proton Stability and Extra Dimensions
In models with a low quantum gravity scale, one might expect that all
operators consistent with gauge symmetries are present in the low-energy
effective theory. If this is the case, some mechanism must be present to
adequately suppress operators that violate baryon number. Here we explore the
possibility that the desired suppression is a consequence of an additional,
spontaneously-broken, non-anomalous U(1) symmetry that is orthogonal to
hypercharge. We show that successful models can be constructed in which the
additional particle content necessary to cancel anomalies is minimal, and
compatible with the constraints from precision electroweak measurements and
gauge unification. If unification is sacrificed, and only the new U(1) and its
associated Higgs fields live in the bulk, it is possible that the gauge field
zero mode and first few Kaluza-Klein excitations lie within the kinematic reach
of the Tevatron. For gauge couplings not much smaller than that of hypercharge,
we show that these highly leptophobic states could evade detection at Run I,
but be discovered at Run II. Our scenario presents an alternative to the
`cartographic' solution to baryon number violation in which leptons and quarks
are separated in an extra dimension.Comment: 16 pages LaTeX, 4 figure
Transition period between vegetation growth and senescence controls interannual variability of C fluxes in a Mediterranean reed wetland
Wetlands are crucial ecosystems modulating climate change due to their great potential
to capture carbon dioxide (CO2), emit methane (CH4) and regulate local climate through
evapotranspiration (ET). Common reed wetlands are particularly interesting given their
high productivity, abundance and highly efficient internal gas-transport mechanism.
However, little is known about the interannual behavior and dominant controlling
factors of Mediterranean reed wetlands, characterized by seasonal flooding and
remarkable weather variability. After 6 years of ecosystem carbon and ET flux
measurements by eddy covariance (3 years for CH4 fluxes), this study shows the
functional vulnerability of such wetlands to climate variability, switching between
carbon (CO2+CH4) sink (660 g CO2-eeq m-2
y
-1
, in 2014) and source (360 g CO2-eq m-2
y
-1
, in 2016) in short periods of time. According to our analyses, the great interannual
variability appeared to mainly depend on the behavior of reed growth dynamics during
the transition to senescence period, what is confirmed through the Enhanced Vegetation
Index as a proxy of photosynthetic activity. Additionally, a similar behavior of seasonal
and daily patterns of carbon fluxes and ET was found compared with other wetlands
under different climates
The prolate-to-oblate shape transition of phospholipid vesicles in response to frequency variation of an AC electric field can be explained by the dielectric anisotropy of a phospholipid bilayer
The external electric field deforms flaccid phospholipid vesicles into
spheroidal bodies, with the rotational axis aligned with its direction.
Deformation is frequency dependent: in the low frequency range (~ 1 kHz), the
deformation is typically prolate, while increasing the frequency to the 10 kHz
range changes the deformation to oblate. We attempt to explain this behaviour
with a theoretical model, based on the minimization of the total free energy of
the vesicle. The energy terms taken into account include the membrane bending
energy and the energy of the electric field. The latter is calculated from the
electric field via the Maxwell stress tensor, where the membrane is modelled as
anisotropic lossy dielectric. Vesicle deformation in response to varying
frequency is calculated numerically. Using a series expansion, we also derive a
simplified expression for the deformation, which retains the frequency
dependence of the exact expression and may provide a better substitute for the
series expansion used by Winterhalter and Helfrich, which was found to be valid
only in the limit of low frequencies. The model with the anisotropic membrane
permittivity imposes two constraints on the values of material constants:
tangential component of dielectric permittivity tensor of the phospholipid
membrane must exceed its radial component by approximately a factor of 3; and
the membrane conductivity has to be relatively high, approximately one tenth of
the conductivity of the external aqueous medium.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in J. Phys.: Condens.
Matte
Elongation and fluctuations of semi-flexible polymers in a nematic solvent
We directly visualize single polymers with persistence lengths ranging from
to 16 m, dissolved in the nematic phase of rod-like {\it fd}
virus. Polymers with sufficiently large persistence length undergo a coil-rod
transition at the isotropic-nematic transition of the background solvent. We
quantitatively analyze the transverse fluctuations of semi-flexible polymers
and show that at long wavelengths they are driven by the fluctuating nematic
background. We extract both the Odijk deflection length and the elastic
constant of the background nematic phase from the data.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR
Weak Mixing Angle and Higgs Mass in Gauge-Higgs Unification Models with Brane Kinetic Terms
We show that the idea of Gauge-Higgs unification(GHU) can be rescued from the
constraint of weak mixing angle by introducing localized brane kinetic terms in
higher dimensional GHU models with bulk and simple gauge groups. We find that
those terms lead to a ratio between Higgs and W boson masses, which is a little
bit deviated from the one derived in the standard model. From numerical
analysis, we find that the current lower bound on the Higgs mass tends to
prefer to exceptional groups E(6), E(7), E(8) rather than other groups like
SU(3l), SO(2n+1), G(2), and F(4) in 6-dimensional(D) GHU models irrespective of
the compactification scales. For the compactification scale below 1 TeV, the
Higgs masses in 6D GHU models with SU(3l), SO(2n+1), G(2), and F(4) groups are
predicted to be less than the current lower bound unless a model parameter
responsible for re-scaling SU(2) gauge coupling is taken to be unnaturally
large enough. To see how the situation is changed in more higher dimensional
GHU model, we take 7D S^{3}/ Z_{2} and 8D T^{4}/ Z_{2} models. It turns out
from our numerical analysis that these higher dimensional GHU models with gauge
groups except for E(6) can lead to the Higgs boson whose masses are predicted
to be above the current lower bound only for the compatification scale above 1
TeV without taking unnaturally large value of the model parameter, whereas the
Higgs masses in the GHU models with E(6) are compatible with the current lower
bound even for the compatification scale below 1 TeV.Comment: 22 pages, 4 figure
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